


Flowers Scraping At The Back Of My Throat (They're Stopping Me From Breathing)

by smile_it_will_get_better



Series: Umbrella Academy Oneshots [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Basically Vanya has Hanahaki and that's all you need to know, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kind of an open ending, POV Vanya Hargreeves, Plot who?, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya Hargreeves-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smile_it_will_get_better/pseuds/smile_it_will_get_better
Summary: Vanya had always loved her siblings.Ever since she was young, she loved spending time with them, even if it was the grueling lessons and training their father forced them through. She loved her siblings with her whole heart.The problem was that they never loved her back.The flowers she threw up daily were a testament to that.





	Flowers Scraping At The Back Of My Throat (They're Stopping Me From Breathing)

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo I'm leaving for camp in a day and instead of packing I decided to write this lmao
> 
> But seriously I read a single hanahaki story and immediately my monkey brain literally took over to write this. It's not the best and is mostly me rambling but I hope you enjoy either way.

Vanya had always loved her siblings. 

Ever since she was young, she loved spending time with them, even if it was the grueling lessons and training their father forced them through. As any child did, she loved fooling around with them. 

She would play ball with Luther and Diego, ever since they discovered all of their powers it was fun to see which one of them had the most control over the ball. Luther would throw it as hard as he could, and she would have to catch it before it hit something. Diego would throw one and try to knock Luther’s out of the air before she got control of it. All in all, fun. 

It was one of the best memories she had with her two brothers, of them running through the outside field trying to control the little rubber balls Luther tossed around.

By the time she turned five years old, she didn’t remember. 

All she remembered was watched Diego ad Luther pay, herself carefully edited out of the narrative. 

Before she would play with Allison and Klaus, the three of them running around and playing hide and seek, finding the best hiding places in their large mansion, sometimes even hiding from their nanny’s and father when mealtime came around. Sure it led to them often getting sent to bed without meals, but they would all be giggling as they walked up the stairs, so life was good. 

Five and Ben were her favorites, not that she’d admit to anyone. They would sit and do their lessons together, reading books and spending hours discussing their favorite characters and plot points. It was the only two relationships that she remembered after the rumoring, the only two of her siblings who truly stuck around. 

When she was four years old she was locked in a cage. And then Allison rumored her. And suddenly the days spent tossing a ball were replaced by playing the violin. Nights spent laughing at the look on fathers face when they managed to hide for a whole two hours turned into nights spent alone. And although she still spent time with Ben and Five, their drive and powers kept her sectored off, different from them. A wall separating her from everyone else. 

She still loved her siblings, even as they grew older and more distant. Even when their opinion of her was next to nothing, and she became just a figure in the background, the powerless girl they couldn’t even bear to pity. 

She was nine years old when the first flower came. 

It was a Saturday, and she watched her siblings run around together, playing and laughing and she wanted to join in. She wanted to play tag with them, wanted to run around the house and be happy just like they were. 

So she walked into the room where they were planning a new game. 

“Luther?” She asked, feeling herself shrink slightly as their Number One stopped talking to turn to her. “Can I play?” 

“Sorry Vanya, you need powers to play with us,” Luther replied, smiling slightly. “It’s just not safe otherwise, we don’t want to hurt you.” 

So she left. 

She could hear them playing outside, laughing and running and sounding like they had oh so much fun and all she wanted to do was join them. It wouldn’t be too dangerous, right? She would be fine if they only let her try. 

But they didn’t want her there, didn’t want to play with her. So she picked up her violin, and played through the tears. 

She couldn’t stop the thoughts though, the running betrayal and hurt. No one stuck up for her, said she would be able to play. They were only playing tag for gods sake! How dangerous could it be? There was only one conclusion, and that was that it was never about being dangerous. They just didn’t want her around. They didn’t like her anymore now that she was powerless. 

As soon as that thought came to her mind, it brought along an uncomfortable tickling sensation in her throat. She managed to play through it for a few minutes, but it quickly became unbearable. 

She coughed, putting down her violin and trying to dislodge whatever was in her throat. It was unbearably uncomfortable, scratchy and large and she fell into a fit of coughing before she managed to get it out. She pulled in a deep breath, relishing in her now free airway before looking down in shock. 

Sitting innocently on the floor in front of her, covered with specks of blood and spit, were bright yellow flower petals. She stared at them in shock, gingerly reaching down to pick one up, holding it in her shaking fingers. 

The yellow and the red contrasted in a hauntingly beautiful way, the red looking so bright against the cool yellow. 

She was shaking picked up the few petals and shoving them into the garbage before anyone else could see them. 

She was coughing up flower petals, who did that? Maybe that was her power, coughing flowers. Not all powers had to be useful right? Klaus could only see ghosts, which wasn’t that useful at all. So maybe she could magically make flowers appear out of her mouth? 

It sounded stupid, even she could realize that. 

Should she tell dad? Mom maybe? Even Pogo might be able to help. But she was scared. Desperately scared. Why was this happening? Why did she suddenly have flowers coming out of her mouth? Why now? 

She didn’t find out until two years of constantly coughing up petals. It happened whenever her siblings would go out on missions and she would be left alone. Every time their father praised them and glared indifferently at her. It happened every time her siblings turned her away, claiming they had better things to do than spend time with her. 

It was weird, and she hated the tickling feeling on her throat before she would get an attack, hated coughing and hacking up stark yellow petals covered in dots of blood. She would shove them in her garbage can, or down the toilet, as long as no one else would see them. 

It got a tiny bit easier, coughing up the petals. Sometimes she would even be able to swallow them back down, hoping they weren’t somehow poisonous. But more often they were easy to get out, a simple cough and she could pull them out from the back of her mouth. She learned how to fake a cough and discreetly take them out of her mouth, slipping them in between her fist and tucking them into pockets so no one could see. 

They scared her, and she hated it with a burning passion, but it wasn’t until she choked up a whole flower that she became officially worried. 

It was after Five kicked her out of his room, claiming she was distracting him from his equations. He had become obsessed with them lately, scribbling all over notebooks and walls, which their father had to keep painting over. She had wanted to distract him for a few minutes, maybe get him away so they could talk. It wasn’t healthy for him to be obsessing like this, and they both new it. 

It still hurt when he turned and yelled at her, telling her to go away and leave him alone. 

She did, because she didn’t know what else to do, and she didn’t want to cry in front of him. So she stumbled to her room, barely managing to close the door before she started coughing. Her throat closing up and she found she could get a breath out past the petals lodged in her throat. 

The panic overtook her as she kneeled on the ground, heaving, and heaving as she cough and hit at her chest in an effort to get it loose. Was this how she was going to die? Choking on flower petals for no good reason? 

Eventually it came out and she spits the large mass onto the floor, sucking in large, grateful breaths. She looked down, ready to pile the petals into her garbage, when she say the whole flower lying in front of her. 

It was a whole rose, lying there with speckles of blood covering it. She picked it up, holding it in the palm of her hand. It wasn’t overly big, a little smaller than her palm. And yet it scared her more than she would like to admit. 

She lay in her bed for the rest of the day, telling mom she was sick when it was supper time. Once it was dark out, she decided she had enough of this suspended waiting. Enough of sitting around until someone told her what was wrong, until she either choked to death, or it stopped. 

So she did something she hadn’t dared to do in a long time. She opened her window and slipped out into the streets. 

She wasn’t good at this whole sneaking out thing, never had a reason to, that was more Klaus’s thing. But she walked down the streets, determined to find an answer. 

She ended up at the library, staring at the building for a solid minute before working up the courage to go in. There were so many people, and it was starting to get late. She walked up to the information desk, determined to talk to the librarian and figure everything out. Her heart was pounding and she could already feel a petal crawling up her throat from the stress, but she convinced herself she was fine. 

“How may I help you?” The librarian asked, smiling gently at her. “Are you lost?” 

“No, I just wanted to ask about something, and I thought you could help.” She said softly, unable to raise her voice. She hated talking to people, so unused to interacting with people around her. 

“Sure sweetie, what do you want to know about?” The lady asked, leaning a little closer. 

“I want to know about the flowers. Why someone might be throwing them up.” She said, raising her head and risking making eye contact with the lady, who’s smile faltered. 

“Do you not know about the Hanahaki?” She said softly. “You should learn about it in school.” 

“I’m homeschooled.” She said, shaking her head. “Hanahaki? What’s that?”

“I have some books I can recommend.” The lady said, typing on her computer. “But the basic is that it stems from unrequited love, when someone’s love becomes unrequited, flowers grow in their lungs, causing them to throw them up. It’s not overly dangerous sweetie, but sometimes if it gets too bad people have choked on them, and sometimes they have thorns, which can cut up your throat. Otherwise, it’s harmless. Just annoying. They go away once the love either fades, or becomes requited. It’s very common these days.” 

“Oh, okay.” Vanya said, blinking fast to try and comprehend what she was hearing. 

She was throwing up flowers because she loved someone who didn’t love her back, and it wasn’t hard to figure out who it was. It’s not like she knew a whole lot of people. 

“Can I have those books?” She asked, willing herself not to cry in a public place. 

She checked out five books on the science behind the Hanahaki disease and when she got home she locked her door and spent the entire night reading, immersing herself in knowledge. She didn’t even reply to Five when he knocked on her door, telling her he was sorry and that he overacted. 

It didn’t matter anymore; she knew the truth. 

She was spitting up yellow roses, and her book told her it was a symbol for platonic love. Familiar Love. 

So she loved her family, but they never loved her back. It wasn’t hard to accept, after all, they had been ignoring her for years. She existed to record their data, that was all. She never got to play games with them, never got to join in on their team building, never got to be included whenever they went on press tours. 

The world had no idea who she was. She wasn’t a part of the Umbrella Academy, she was just Number Seven, the powerless, the forgotten, the unloved. 

She coughed up two more roses and a whole plethora of petals that night. 

It didn’t get better for the rest of her life. 

No matter what she did, how many times she tried to convince herself to not love her siblings, or pretend they loved her back, the flowers did not stop. And every night she would choke on them, coughing and wheezing around petals. 

She learned how to sleep on her side and not move so she wouldn’t coke on them while she slept. She learned how to hide them when she had an attack in public. How to swallow them down and smile when she did so. 

They got worse after Five left, doubling once Ben died. They continued on until she left, dulling slightly now that she was free from that loveless home. But they still came back every once in a while when she had nightmares, or when she thought back to that time. Anytime she saw anything vaguely reminding her of the Umbrella Academy they would flare up, when she watched one of Allison’s films, or saw Klaus or Diego on the street. 

She tried to tell her therapist, but it got nowhere and only drug up worst memories, making her cough and choke through almost all of their sessions before Vanya decided to stop going. 

At one point, she got biter enough that she wrote a book. She never mentioned the flowers, but she made it very clear that they never loved her, that they never cared. It had to be true right? She couldn’t find it inside to feel bad about sharing their secrets when she was the one living with decades of flower petals under her tongue, spitting up roses and blood almost daily.

It was easy to accept the flowers as a part of her lifestyle, as something she would never get rid of. Sure she was bitter at times, sometimes she cursed at her siblings for the loneliness she went through, and the dreams of them staring her into the eyes and telling her they didn’t want to spend time with someone like her were never going to stop. 

Then her father died. And everything changed in the course of a few days. The flowers stopped for some reason, the first day or two of the funeral. She thought they would get worse, being around her siblings again, especially due to the bitterness over her book. But things were almost okay, and she never spit up a single flower petal. 

She didn’t have time to give it serious thought because within days they were back, more petals in the back of her throat, choking her once again. 

Weirdly enough, they seemed to be changing color, which had never happened in her entire life. The normal bright yellow seemed to be paling, but she didn’t give it much thought. 

She was more concerned with the mess of her family and trying to form a relationship with possible the other person in the world to actually fall in love with her. When Leonard was there the flowers went away, most of the time at least. There were a few instances that the petals emerged, but she swallowed them down, or discarded them without a second glance. Preoccupied with the fact that she actually had powers. 

The very thing that split her and her siblings apart, the thing that made them hate her, that made her so unworthy of their love and affection, she had it the entire time. They hated her for nothing. Forced her through years of flower petals scraping her throat, through years of isolation and pain for absolutely nothing. 

So when Allison showed up at Leonard cabin, trying to get her to come home, it was fair to say she was more than a little pissed. 

How dare Allison come here, trying to get her to leave the only place she felt loved and safe? Why would Allison come her and tell her that she cared, when the flower petals currently creeping up her throat told her a different story? 

“Because I love you Vanya!” Allison cried, tears in her eyes and desperation in her voice, and Vanya couldn’t stand it any longer. 

“Stop saying that!” She screamed. “If you love me than why do I still suffer from these?” She cried pulling a petal from under her tongue and shoving it into Allison’s face. 

Only, the bright yellow color wasn’t yellow anymore. The petals were a dark red, and not because it was covered in blood. 

“Vanya?” Allison asked, coming slightly closer as Vanya stared at the petal in her hand. “Vanya, what’s wrong?” 

“It should be yellow.” She said softly, glancing up at Allison. “Why isn’t it yellow?” 

Red wasn’t for platonic or familial love. It was for romantic love, romances. And she hadn’t fallen in love with her siblings over the course of a week, so why were they red? 

“Vanya you’re scaring me, just come home and we can talk about this,” Allison said, reaching out and grabbing her arm. 

There was only one thing it could mean. Did it mean Leonard didn’t love her? Did it mean he didn’t actually care? 

The world swirled under her tear-stained vision, and before she knew what was happening, it all faded to black. 

_________________________________

She woke up at home, lying on the couch and her siblings bickering voices surrounding her. She registered first that she was on her back, and years of trained responses made her turn to her side, coughing and choking in case something got lodged in her throat. 

“Vanya!” She heard multiple voices cry, and suddenly Allison was in front of her, grabbing her and pulling her into a hug. “You had me so worried.” 

“What’s going on?” She asked, pushing away. “What happened?” 

“It turns out Leonard is actually a murderer who killed his dad and is obsessed with the Umbrella Academy,” Diego said, leaning back against the post. “The police are arresting him as we speak.” 

What?” She asked. 

She couldn’t believe this; Leonard was a murder? But he seemed so sweet, and he liked her, and he never lied. But the rose petal in her mouth was red, the symbol for unrequited romantic love. 

Was Leonard playing with her the entire time? Using her to get to her siblings. She was so stupid to let that happen, so silly to believe that someone could actually love her. 

Maybe she was doomed to forever fall in love with people who could never love her back. 

“Can you tell us about the flowers?” Allison asked, bringing her gently back to the present. “What are they about?” 

“Hanahaki right?” Luther asked, barely fitting into the chair he sat on. “I’ve heard of it once or twice.” 

“Ever since I was nine.” She said bitterly, glaring at them. Ever since she was off her meds, everything was so much brighter. Her emotions, mostly anger, flared up so often she was almost afraid of it. Of how passionately her anger burned when she wanted it to. “Ever since I realized none of you loved me.” 

“What?” Immediately five voices cried out in protest, and the noise almost hurt her head with its intensity. 

“We’ve always loved you Vanya.” Allison said, squeezing her hands. “We might not be the best at showing it, but we do.” 

“I’m still pissed at the book,” Diego put in. “But you’re my sister dipshit, of course I love you.” 

Each of her siblings rambled out similar protests, and she felt tears start to build up in her eyes once again. 

“Then why?” She asked, cutting Luther off from him a long winded, rambling, and awkward declaration of sibling’s adoration. “Why did I get the flowers?” 

They had to be lying, of course. Because almost twenty-one years of flowers lodged in her throat could not lie. 

“Ever think maybe it was dear old dad?” Klaus was the first one to speak up, everyone turning to stare at him in confusion. “I mean you loved him right?” 

“He’s out dad.” She stammered out. “Sure he was an ass but of course I loved him.” 

“Boom!” Klaus replied, clapping his hands together. “Problem solved, that man was incapable of loving anything.” 

And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, his words held a certain ring of truth. 

Maybe that was the answer, and her entire life had been a lie. But really, that part was already true, so how much more lies could they pile before she truly snapped. 

It wasn’t hard to believe that her dad never loved her, despite the childish voice in the back of her head demanding that he did. 

After all, he was the one to give her those pills, he was the one who isolated her from a team she so clearly would have thrived on. He was the one who told her those lies over and over again until she believed them more than she believed her name was Vanya. 

And as she smiled weakly at her siblings, breathing in deeply and for the first time in years, she couldn’t feel the scrape of flowers at the base of her throat, and all she felt was air running into her lungs. 

Maybe they would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment or Kudo if you enjoyed or even if you absolutely hated it! I accept all comments:)


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